Written by Fran Molloy
Australians are following a global trend, directing their experience and passions to help build schools overseas; young property developer Carly Crutchfield tells us her experiences.
Last year, talk show host and megacelebrity, Oprah Winfrey, opened the school for disadvantaged girls in Johannesburg, South Africa that she has funded to the tune of around US $40 million.
The school will eventually educate around 450 students each year after Oprah decided to get involved, rather than just write cheques for charities.
Oprah is a high-profile example of a growing trend for wealthy Westerners to direct their charitable donations into schools. It´s a trend filled with hope and one that many believe will have an ongoing impact on entire villages and communities, where schools play a central role.
With half of the world´s six billion people living on less than US $2 a day, the fortunate few with money to spare are becoming more aware of the yawning gap between rich and poor and gaining a great sense of satisfaction from sharing their wealth.
Oprah Winfrey says that her desire to feel a greater connection with the people she was trying to help was the motivation behind her building a school for poor South African girls.
Bill Gates´ wife, Melinda, is credited with Microsoft´s involvement in the African e-Schools project, which supports technology requirements for 25 schools in eight African countries: Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal.
And since 2005, Richard Branson has funded an entire faculty at one South African university, CIDA City Campus, which has been set up by South African businessman, Taddy Blecher, to enable poor black families to access higher education. Closer to home, former Young Australian of the Year, Tricia Broadbridge, has set up a school on Phi Phi Island in Thailand in memory of her late husband, AFL player Troy Broadbridge, who was killed in the 2004 tsunami on the couple´s honeymoon.
All these school founders have reaped great benefits from giving to others – particularly providing an education for children who may go on to make a huge difference in their own communities.
For 27-year-old Australian property developer, Carly Crutchfield, a desire to help people who had been rocked by disaster led her to realise that building schools in poor countries could be as rewarding for the donors as the receivers.
She has joined up with entrepreneurs, Dale Beaumont and Brent Williams to set up "Tomorrow´s Youth," a charitable foundation that will help build schools in third world countries.
The Foundation currently runs mentoring programs for young Australians and plans are in place to encourage their students to raise funds and even travel overseas to physically help to build schools.
"Carly has been a breath of fresh air, she brings an enormous amount of experience to extend the global reach of the program," Dale Beaumont says.
"We really want to extend out and help teenagers to have an opportunity to give something back and really benefit from that experience."
Carly is already a hot talent on the property investment speaking circuit, where she gives stirring speeches to would-be property magnates, encouraging them to develop their inner entrepreneur.
Carly says she´s always been involved in charity work. Deeply affected by her uncle´s death from a drug overdose more than a decade ago, she has since been an active volunteer with the Scientology-sponsored charity, Drug Free Ambassadors Australia.
But a turning point for Carly was the tsunami that devastated South-East Asia in 2004. She flew to Indonesia and made her way to Banda Aceh, wearing a Scientology T-shirt, which put her in touch with other Scientology volunteers. Hiring a truck from a local merchant, she helped distribute food flown in by aid organisations like AusAID that lay perishing on the airport tarmacs; and at night, the volunteers offered trauma counselling to the still shocked locals.
"I was watching the news and immediately decided to help. I had no idea what I was going to do but I just got on the plane. I feel that what is happening in the world is happening to all of us and I have to do something about it," she recalls.
It was a baptism of fire for Carly, then only 23-years-old. But like many Australians jack-knifed into action by the horrific impact of this natural disaster on poor communities, she realised that there were things she could do to make a huge difference in people´s lives.
Two years later, on May 27 2006, a major earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Java, near Yogjakarta, just outside the town of Bantul, killing at least 5,700 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
Again, Carly dropped everything and flew into Yogjakarta to try to put some disaster relief in place. She found a place to stay, teamed up with four other Scientology volunteers and went out to help the devastated villagers.
Schools play a crucial role as a focus for community in villages like Bantul and Carly realised that rebuilding the school was a way to have a positive impact on a lot of people.
Local villagers helped draw up crude designs for the school and gathered useful material that could be recycled from the rubble; meanwhile Carly contacted friends in Australia who wired money through Western Union and helped arrange delivery of needed materials.
Carly´s experience with property development came in handy and she embarked on the challenge of pushing through the red tape to get the school up and running.
"I ran around to find the people who needed to sign the paperwork starting with Government Ministers. I would be sent from one person to the next and to the next."
Frustrated by the impassive bureaucracy, she gate-crashed a press conference where the king of the local province had flown in to visit refugees and persuaded him to sign an approval form; ensuring a smooth passage for all future plans for the school.
"We hired an open backed ute and drove into an area and asked for volunteers. These people literally jumped into the truck then and there and showed up to help build the school at 6am every day," she says.
"Schools aren´t just schools to these people. They are a place of community – like a community a hall. It gives the community a real sense of pride to rebuild something that educates their youth."
Just a few months later, in December 2006, a typhoon named Durian hit the town of Legaspi in the Philippines, near Cebu, and giant mudslides swept away entire villages, killing hundreds.
Carly again flew in to help and helped organise a group of local villagers and military workers to rebuild a school buried by rivers of mud and ash from the Mayon volcano.
"The biggest thing, like anything in life, is showing up!" she says.
